Church in the World

Non-political? Pope says Turkey is welcome in Europe

Pope Benedict XVI was in predominantly Muslim Turkey this week where he tried to convince sceptics that he was sincere in wanting friendly relations and real dialogue with Islam. In what some saw as a dramatic gesture to prove his goodwill, the Pope evidently dropped objections he made in 1994 when still a cardinal and said the Vatican favoured Turkey's admission to the European Union. 

The Pope's presumed "reversal" came in the capital city, Ankara, on Tuesday at the start of a four-day visit that was to be marked by heavy security and intense media scrutiny. The journey was originally planned several months ago as an effort to warm relations not between Muslims and Christians, but between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. However, his long-planned meeting with the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople was being largely overshadowed by the ongoing controversy that the Pope ignited last September during a university lecture in Bavaria when he quoted an early fifteenth-century Byzantine emperor who said Islam was a violent and unreasonable religion.

Turkish officials took measures to check any angry protests that might take place during the Pope's visit, but on the first leg of his journey - in Ankara and Ephesus - protests were at a minimum. In a last-minute change of plans, Turkey's Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, met the Pope at Ankara airport immediately after the papal plane landed. The government leader had originally said that he would not be able to greet Benedict because he had to be at a NATO meeting in Latvia. But after speaking together for 20 minutes via a translator, Mr Erdogan quoted the Pope as saying: "We are not politicians, but we would like Turkey to join the EU." Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi SJ did not confirm the quote, but said only that the Holy See saw "positively" the "integration of Turkey in Europe on the basis of common values and principles".

Pope Benedict was clearly making an extra effort to put any negative press behind him and extend a hand of friendship to Turkey's 72 million people, 98 per cent of whom are Muslims. He did so, especially, by quoting Popes John XXIII and John Paul II, two predecessors whose legacies are highly respected by most people in the country.

But he also did so in his own words. "I greet all the Muslims in Turkey with particular esteem and affectionate regard," he said in English at a meeting on Tuesday afternoon with the officials of the government-run Religious Affairs Directorate. The president of the agency, Ali Bardakoglu, was one of the Pope's sharpest critics after the offending university lecture. The Pope was reconciliatory, saying Christians and Muslims shared a "common path" in helping society "to open itself to the transcendent". He added that the "best way forward" was through an "authentic dialogue" between the two faiths "based on truth and inspired by a sincere wish to know one another better". But Pope Benedict did not shrink from calling on the Turkish Government to guarantee religious freedom for "all believers", a tacit reference to discrimination experienced by Christian communities in Turkey.

The speech was the first of two carefully written addresses the Pope delivered on his first day in Turkey and seemed to be well received by officials here. "Turkey has always served as a bridge between East and West, between Asia and Europe, and as a crossroads of cultures and religions," he said later the same day in an address to ambassadors from around the world. In that address, which was given at the Apostolic Nunciature in Ankara, Pope Benedict said that "authentic dialogue" and "fruitful debate" were the only way to "arrive at lasting and acceptable political solutions" to problems in the world, including stopping the spread of terrorism.

The Pope went to Ephesus on the second day of his journey to celebrate Mass at a shrine "discovered" in 1891 and believed to be the house where the Virgin Mary lived with St John at the end of her life.